Tech —

iFixit teardown shows Surface Pro is a tough nut to crack

Magnesium-bodied tablet is chock full of screws 'n' glue.

iFixit's teardown of the Surface Pro has surfaced (ha!) this morning, and boy, did the iFixit crew have to work for it. Microsoft's new tablet is one of the best secured, most difficult-to-open devices that the team has ever gotten its hands on. Standing between the crew's grabby hands and the machine's tender insides was a gooey layer of tar-like glue and more than 90 screws.

Once the tablet had been pried open—a lengthy process which required heat guns, guitar picks, and no doubt a lot of swearing—the insides were laid bare. Some of the parts are unremarkable, like the mSATA SSD holding all of the Surface's data (the SSD is a Micron RealSSD C400). Others, though, are quite impressive: the Surface Pro's battery is an LG-produced "Escalade" lithium-ion unit rated for 7.4V and 5676mAh.

This says a lot about the Surface Pro's power usage. The battery inside a current-generation iPad has roughly the same capacity (43 Watt hours, versus this battery's 42) but produces a lower voltage. Even with this large amount of energy available to it, the Surface ekes out a max of five hours of runtime. Microsoft Editor Peter Bright got about four hours of usage out of the tablet, leading him to succinctly comment, "This is not an all-day machine."

Enlarge/ A big juicy battery still doesn't provide quite enough power to let the Surface Pro run all day on a single charge.

The Surface Pro does have a desktop-class CPU, which is one of the factors behind its "Pro" moniker. Hiding on the bottom of the motherboard (facing the back of the tablet) is a low-voltage Intel Ivy Bridge i5-3317U. This CPU's 17W TDP makes it as good a fit for the Surface as possible without using one of Intel's new Y-level Ivy Bridge CPUs with the company's somewhat creative Watt counting.

Enlarge/ The underside of the Surface Pro's motherboard, showing the i5-3317U outlined in orange.

iFixit gives the Surface Pro an overall repairability rating of 1 out of 10 in light of the heroic measures the company had to take to get underneath the surface (ha ha!). Tablets don't necessarily have to be this difficult to repair—compare this teardown to the Kindle Fire's high 8 out of 10 score—but it's also arguable how applicable a repairability score is for a tablet. It's doubtful the vast majority of users will be subjecting their Surface Pros to any form of "repair" other than "box it up and ship it to Microsoft." Still, would-be tinkerers who want to tear into the tablet had better gather their guitar picks and plug in their heat guns.

Lee Hutchinson
Lee is the Senior Technology Editor at Ars and oversees gadget, automotive, IT, and culture content. He also knows stuff about enterprise storage, security, and manned space flight. Lee is based in Houston, TX. Emaillee.hutchinson@arstechnica.com//Twitter@Lee_Ars

If you look at the title photo you can see that the opposite side of the board has a bunch of components on it, covering most of the surface (ha?).

The size of the device is determined by the screen. While it does look like they could have made the board a bit more compact, they probably chose the extra space to keep the various hot chips farther apart, ease of use and the savings of not designing another board.

I predict that the lack of end-user serviceability will cost Microsoft literally one, possibly as many as two or even three sales.

This all depends on Microsoft's warranty support. Apple can get away with it because they have a great warranty program. As in, it breaks within the warranty, here's another one. I could understand not buying this if it was a full laptop and not a tablet acting as a laptop. Not that I like Apple, just saying if you aren't going to allow people to fix their items then you should mimic or exceed the Apple warranty support program.

But, will the brief period of complaints be as loud as they were when people found out Apple glued batteries into their macbooks?

Laptops, even Apple ones, traditionally had removable batteries. Batteries can ultimately be considered a consumable if you use/abuse them long enough. The move towards complete integration as seen in tablets, some phones and other laptops means these devices are now disposable.

Then again how many people end up replacing batteries before they would replace the whole product?

High volume business users probably have a service contract anyway so they can get the item replaced. Tech addicts like myself (and most Ars readers probably), will have moved on to the next thing long before the batteries cease working. That leaves the frugal buyer, the sort of person who still runs a laptop from 5 years ago. Manufacturers really aren't looking to cater to the needs of this type of customer as they don't represent a huge contribution to their profits anyway.

Much is often made of the ability to repair items, but realistically it's a tiny portion of the bottom line. It's wasteful consumerism, definitely, but in the grand scheme of things it's not a big deal. I don't agree with it either, but until customers choose sustainable over thinner and lighter it's not gonna change.

Microsoft Editor Peter Bright got about four hours of usage out of the tablet, leading him to succinctly comment, "This is not an all-day machine."

Meh. I don't know of many full on laptops that are suitable for productivity work (not that I'm necessarily asserting that Surface Pro is suitable for such) that can run an entire day on a single battery. Every laptop that I've used for work has to be charged during the day, and usually is run off of AC for most of it.

The battery inside a current-generation iPad has roughly the same capacity (43 Watt hours, versus this battery's 42) but produces a lower voltage.

Just a reminder that the voltage doesn't really matter here... the ratings are given in terms of energy storage, which incorporates the voltage... watt*hour = voltage*current*time (which is why I always prefer watt*hours over mA*hours).

I think its clear that even us techies are getting jaded to the sealed nature of today's devices.

Over the last few years, there has been much anguish and gnashing of teeth at Apple over non-replacable batteries, funky screws, proprietary SSDs, soldered-on RAM, etc. When the Surface Pro was announced, I saw a handful of cheers that "it's just another PC - upgradeable, reconfigurable, hackable - Hooray!"

Clearly that's not the case. While it is plausible that the standard-form SSD can be upgraded, the likelyhood of causing major damage or simply not being able to properly re-close the case seems high. There is zero practical upgradeability, save for USB.

I think its clear that even us techies are getting jaded to the sealed nature of today's devices.~snip~And yet, the majority of the reaction to this news seems to be "Meh."

that's probably because most of us won't be buying these things. sure, they look spiffy and have snazzy commercials, but most of us already have laptops that are nearly as portable and much more capable, so why bother wasting money on Yet Another Shiny Object?

It's interesting to see M$ and Apple both migrate to product builds that require all but tossing the product in the trash for a replacement in a day and age where "recycling" is being screamed and shouted more loudly than any point in history. Renewable and reusable resources and they both start out products that are less component base than previous iterations in the past 20 years.

Hey yeah - Apple might have a great EPEAT rating on products - but why does that only apply to end of life when the overall product is being replaced. Not when a given component needs replacing that would extend the lifespan of the overall product longer than it's original time frame.

And now M$ is following suit. WTF ?

Hell iPhones are produced to only last 1 year. My first one all but died at the 1.5 year mark. Touchscreen sensitivity was almost gone - processor slowed to a crawl (took 30 seconds to do anything system based) The proximity sensors were toast around a year into it.

Somehow I don't think your iPhone experience is indicative of most users. I had an iPhone 4 since close to its launch and I have had no problems with any part of it. While I agree that Apple encourages people to swap out annually, I've seen nothing that indicates the build quality lasts only that long.

In terms of recycling, I'm not sure how MS is but I know Apple recycles their products pretty effectively, and they offer decent incentives to trade in your old device for credit (granted, not cash). With them offering $140 for an iPhone 4 I paid $200 2 years ago, for me that's a pretty strong incentive. If i'm returning the product for cash value and it's being properly disassembled and recycled, then how it's manufactured shouldn't be of great consequence as long as it's not ending up in a landfill.

I think its clear that even us techies are getting jaded to the sealed nature of today's devices.

Over the last few years, there has been much anguish and gnashing of teeth at Apple over non-replacable batteries, funky screws, proprietary SSDs, soldered-on RAM, etc. When the Surface Pro was announced, I saw a handful of cheers that "it's just another PC - upgradeable, reconfigurable, hackable - Hooray!"

Clearly that's not the case. While it is plausible that the standard-form SSD can be upgraded, the likelyhood of causing major damage or simply not being able to properly re-close the case seems high. There is zero practical upgradeability, save for USB.

And yet, the majority of the reaction to this news seems to be "Meh."

While I'm becoming a little bit jaded, it does annoy me. I'm pretty excited about the possibilities of these tablets (well, actually, I'm more excited by the convertibles that many seem to be deriding as too compromised) but am still not quite willing to cave on lack of replaceable batteries (I don't mind if they're inside the case and screwed in like current non-retina MBPs, but glue is too much of a PITA), mass storage, and to a lesser extent RAM. My current MBP may be my last Mac due to some of these issues, and if this trend continues, it looks like options might be pretty limited. I'd actually really like to support "pure" MS devices but not if they're going to be designed like this.

Realistically though, I'm one of the "use a laptop for 5 years" people that an above post points out manufacturers are not too interested in catering to.

I can assume this is becoming a MEME. I only 1% of the time see metro on my 2 windows 8 machines. Start8 or equivalent ensures that the machine boots up into the desktop and I can count on one hand how many Metro apps I've installed (and rarely use)

I find it funny that when MS does something Apple gets criticized for, it's not as big a deal when MS does it.

Example:

Apple: iPhone OS is released in 2007 and doesn't have cut, copy or paste for a few OS versions. The MS fans said, "we had that on our phones since the Eisenhower administration".

Microsoft: MS releases new Windows Phone mobile OS to replace Windows Mobile in 2010. This new OS also initially lacked cut, copy and paste. Critics said, "not a big deal. MS will add that once its perfect".

But seriously, as much as I might criticize MS and the Surface tablet, it sure sounds like a solidly-built device. I think that's part of the reasoning behind companies like Apple and MS making decisions like this. It may possibly be for making money off people who end up with bricked devices that can't be serviced, but I think there's also something to be said that these devices are more durable and feel more solid because of how they are built. Maybe everyone wants to crack open their devices and tinker away, but if you look at a lot of devices where that's a possibility...they aren't always well-built. I'm not saying there aren't devices where you can tinker away and have a solid construction, but from my experiences, it's generally not the case.

I find it funny that when MS does something Apple gets criticized for, it's not as big a deal when MS does it.

Very true.

If Surface Pro had been an Apple product, the Apple haters would have jumped all over Surface Pro for having a non-removable battery, being difficult to repair, having a proprietary power connector, having non-upgradeable RAM, and for connecting an external monitor using Mini DisplayPort that "no one else uses."

Question... Since the Surface Pro is more like a traditional laptop, is it a device that you boot up / shut off whenever you want to use it? Or does it have instant on / off capabilities that work like a tablet, without being a drain on the battery?

Actually Microsoft has/had an hell of a repair program. The redlining Xboxes. Pretty slick process. But the hard drives where external in that case making exchanges easy! Maybe they need to have pop-out hard drives on these things...

At least 18 people* felt it was worth a downvote, so apparently not. It's way too old to be considered clever. If that's the best way you can find to make your point, probably your point isn't worth making.

Microsoft Editor Peter Bright got about four hours of usage out of the tablet, leading him to succinctly comment, "This is not an all-day machine."

Meh. I don't know of many full on laptops that are suitable for productivity work (not that I'm necessarily asserting that Surface Pro is suitable for such) that can run an entire day on a single battery. Every laptop that I've used for work has to be charged during the day, and usually is run off of AC for most of it.

I find it funny that when MS does something Apple gets criticized for, it's not as big a deal when MS does it.

Very true.

If Surface Pro had been an Apple product, the Apple haters would have jumped all over Surface Pro for having a non-removable battery, being difficult to repair, having a proprietary power connector, having non-upgradeable RAM, and for connecting an external monitor using Mini DisplayPort that "no one else uses."

It is important to consider the time difference between the releases. Had MS released this at the same time as the Macbook, the gnashing would (I hope) have been comparable.

Unfortunately, the long list of gadgets that have been released since then that are essentially non-repairable & non-upgradeable has lowered our expectations. I deal with this by assuming the battery will last a maximum of 300 charges and not buying said gadgets unless I find the lifetime/price ratio to be acceptable. In this case, since I think it would have to be charged daily to be useful, I don't see me ever buying one since a one-year lifetime is unacceptable.

Non-serviceable devices are becoming the norm. Apple may have gotten the train going but everybody is jumping on it now. For the majority of consumers it doesn't matter - whatever the technical minority may think (myself included). Thin & light >> easy servicing in the marketplace.

Also, the tablet form factor falls closer to "disposable widget" than laptops in the consumer mind. I accept a tablet whose internals I can't reach because the portability is more valuable and it costs less. I won't accept it in a laptop - I tend to replace the battery and upgrade the HD after a couple years.

Non-serviceable devices are becoming the norm. Apple may have gotten the train going but everybody is jumping on it now. For the majority of consumers it doesn't matter - whatever the technical minority may think (myself included). Thin & light >> easy servicing in the marketplace.

Also, the tablet form factor falls closer to "disposable widget" than laptops in the consumer mind. I accept a tablet whose internals I can't reach because the portability is more valuable and it costs less. I won't accept it in a laptop - I tend to replace the battery and upgrade the HD after a couple years.

If the manufacturer offers some sane recycling IMHO this is totally fine, especially with devices that are very likely obsolete a few years down the road anyway since you can then get much better, faster, cheaper, lighter and thinner devices. And what's with batteries? They have improved quite a lot in the last few years. If you can expect to get 1000 charge cycles out of a battery and then have to send it back to have it replaced this certainly is better than having to replace it every 200 cycles and then just throwing the old battery into the trash (as with about 95% of all user-replaceable batteries).

I certainly like modular systems but it's fairly obvious that small form-factors with high integration (which means light, thin and still rigid) are not that compatible with modularity.

...And yet, the majority of the reaction to this news seems to be "Meh."

I like to think that most of us smart people here either use an an android while mobile and whatever computer work provides us, and then a juiced up linux tower at home. I mean, why not make the move towards Linux in these end times of growing walls?

Then again, I could be demonstrating the "typical-mind fallacy" here...

toyotabedzrock wrote:

If they used fewer screws it might weigh less. And that looks like a bunch of glue. They need to find a new guy to tweak that hardware.

Maybe the glue and the vicelike grip of all those screws is supposed to serve as some pretty smart water(idiot) proofing.

"iFixit gives the Surface Pro an overall repairability rating of 1 .... .... compare this teardown to the Kindle Fire's high 8 out of 10 score—but it's also arguable how applicable a repairability score is for a tablet. "

It isn't the function that determines this, but the price. If it were a sealed $400 laptop, it wouldn't be nearly as bad as a sealed $1000 tablet.

Being able to replace some components is all but irrelevant to me when we are talking about $200 tablet like the Fire, but for $1000 device it matters a lot more and is less forgivable.

Also I don't consider this so much about repair as it is about replacing wear items. Batteries and storage will wear out. They should be replaceable on expensive devices. Or at least have fixed cost depot swaps for these wear items.

I think the comment about a user's need to open their tablet at any point sums it up. Unless your using it for some home brew madness this lack of access isn't too bad & if you are using for madness; some tar-like glue is not a huge barrier. Shame there's no easy RAM or HDD upgrades.

High volume business users probably have a service contract anyway so they can get the item replaced. Tech addicts like myself (and most Ars readers probably), will have moved on to the next thing long before the batteries cease working. That leaves the frugal buyer, the sort of person who still runs a laptop from 5 years ago. Manufacturers really aren't looking to cater to the needs of this type of customer as they don't represent a huge contribution to their profits anyway.

Much is often made of the ability to repair items, but realistically it's a tiny portion of the bottom line. It's wasteful consumerism, definitely, but in the grand scheme of things it's not a big deal. I don't agree with it either, but until customers choose sustainable over thinner and lighter it's not gonna change.

That is a very good, concise explanation. I am a horribly cheap bastard, and I mostly buy used. If I buy new, I hang on to it for a long time. The plus to that is that I paid my house off in 11 years and have no debt.